Dr. Zugibe, who is internationally renowned for his work in forensic pathology, told us that he has been studying the Shroud of Turin for more than 52 years. His intent has been to understand more deeply the greatest expression of God's love, the passion and death of Jesus Christ to affect the redemption.

As a doctor with professional knowledge of the pain Christ's wounds could cause, Dr. Zugibe presented what he called a “medical way of the cross.” Christ’s suffering was extreme mental anguish as well as excruciating physical pain. First, Dr. Zugibe referenced Christ sweating blood while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. (St. Luke included this detail in his gospel — Dr. Zugibe commented that as a physician, St. Luke was quite observant of physical details.) Dr. Zugibe cited a number of known cases of people sweating drops of blood — all in states of acute anxiety or fear. The doctor explained the medical/anatomical reasons for this reaction.

Dr. Zugibe then described the scourging of Christ — 39 lashes by an instrument with three sharp metal prongs — whose markings in fact are evident on the shroud. Scourging is a brutal punishment which often motivates convulsions, he explained. The crown of thorns (actually, a cap, we learned) was also a cause of traumatic shock, digging into sensitive cranial nerves. The cross piece that Christ carried on the road to Cavalry was approximately 50 pounds — Simon from Cyrene was forced to help Christ carry the cross — and the nails driven into his hands and feet were square-shaped and 5 inches in length. With detailed analysis and experimentation, Dr. Zugibe illustrated his assertion that the nails in fact were not driven into the wrists but the palm of the hand near the thumb (this is significant as the Bible states that none of the Savior’s bones would be broken).

Lastly, Dr. Zugibe presented experiments indicating that Christ died not of asphyxiation, as commonly thought, but rather from traumatic and hypo-bulemic shock due to crucifixion. He also showed us a number of slides of the Shroud and its negative relief image of the face of Christ.

We all agreed that Dr. Zugibe’s presentation has provided us with material for deep reflection and meditation on the intense sufferings of Christ.